Brawl Sports’ top 10 pound-for-pound rankings

For the past couple of months, I’ve been contributing to Yahoo! Sports’ mixed martial arts top 10 rankings. You can find the latest poll here.

My August ballot shook out very similarly to the Y! Sports’ list. I’m in agreement with my MMA media colleagues on 9 of the 10 fighters. We differ on Takanori Gomi and Chuck Liddell. I have Gomi ninth, while “The Iceman” checks in at No. 10 in the Yahoo! poll. Gomi didn’t make the Y! Sport’s list; Liddell didn’t make mine, although I’d have him at No. 11 in an expanded list.

22 Responses

II’m sure you will get many “what about this guy” responses to your list, so here are mine:

What about Uriah Faber? I think he deserves to be in the top 10 more than Gomi. Sean Sherk perhaps? Thats presuming he will be able to reverse the doping allegations against him. But overall great list. 8 of your top 10 are in the UFC, Hopefully in the coming months all 10 will be in the UFC.

Except for the number 1, UFC just about has all the MMA superstars on Steve’s list. Ain’t that nice.

It’s scary–or should be to the guys who have to fight him–that Fedor is number one pound for pound–and he’s a heavyweight! We know Fedor has already defeated Nog and Cro Cop, but I’d love to see Fedor face off against Tim Sylvia and Andrei Arlovski. He’d have some difficulty with Tim’s long reach, but if it got to the ground Sylvia would be finished by Fedor’s ground and pound or submission. Fedor would also face a tough foe in Andrei; but as soon as Andrei made a mistake, Fedor would quickly take advantage of it and probably finish Andrei off.

Did you see Babalu’s reasoning in his hearing? He is now saying that he did not think that Heath had tapped. Then why did he tell Rogan that he was sending a message? He lost his job and now will probably get suspended. What a difference a year makes for this guy. He went from challenging for the title to being unemployed.

Steve- Why no “Iceman” in the top 10 because he had such a bad showing against “Rampage”?, he carried the company into the era that they are now and then he loses(admittedly very badly)and now everyone is down on the guy, to me he is still a top fighter but he needs to get back in the ring and show it soon. Also I think we need to see if somebody switched Randy Couture with a much younger fighter as he looked amazing last Saturday against a highly motivated and much bigger fighter.

James

[James – I’m not down on Liddell. He’s clearly still one of the best fighters in the sport, but he showed against Jackson that he has some holes in his game. As I mentioned in my post, I have him pegged at No. 11. — Steve]

You’re telling me that the one guy who KO’d Couture twice , and who sucessfully defended the UFC Light Heavy Belt 11 times could not make your list? That’s a classic example of what psychologists call the “recency effect.”

Please take Quinton Jackson out of that list, he ins´t a great striker and he has no submission game. I´m sure the Axe Murderer is better at those skill I have quote. Please don´t be another Dana sell man.

I’d like to echo what Josh said the other day about the Pride situation. The UFC will become the premier MMA organization just like what NFL is to football, NBA is to basketball, and NHL is to hockey. The best athletes in those sports–from around the world–end up in those organizations. And by the way, they are all monopolies, but who cares?

The one difference is that Pride was a major MMA entity in a faraway country (unlike football’s old AFL, which merged eventually with the NFL). So, for a while at least, Pride fans and especially the Japanese will lament the vacuum left behind by the UFC buyout of Pride. But like Josh said, everyone will get over it.

It might have been exciting to see UFC’s champions and Pride’s champions meet in “Superbowl Fights.” But for various reasons it would have been difficult for the two organizations to work together and pull it off. Besides, we’d probably get to see only one Superbowl Fight per year in each weight division. With UFC cornering the market on the best fighters, we get to see the best against the best year round. From a fighter’s point of view, as UFC grows in popularity, the fighter payouts will increase, and the top guys will earn extravagant sums (plus endorsements).

So, if Fishman and the Yakuza want to fill the vacuum left behind by Pride’s absence, they can go right ahead. Maybe whatever they manage to create will end up being what the Canadian Football League and “World” Football League are to the NFL. I rest my case (for now at least).

And how about chucks next fight!Isn’t that a easy come back fight!!And forest wanting to fight shogun!!What is he thinking!Who knows.And how about bisping next fight hope its a good one!!And gsp that man will be the champ after matt hughes wins his belt back then gsp will take it from him!!Then we get to see BJ PENN AND GSP If everything goes down right!!But we can’t forget about The heat!!He in my top 20!!

Some people just run their fingers without knowing what the hell they’re talking about.

Chuck Liddell did not defend any title 11 times. Are you kidding? Please check your facts, he defended it 4 times against Horn, Sobral, Couture, Ortiz. Liddell is a great fighter but anyone can spot holes in his game from a mile away. Besides being dominated once and KO’d the second time by Rampage does not put you in top 10.

Yes, GSP should be top 5. Very few WW have faced the caliber of fighters he has. Anyone who thinks Matt Serra deserves to be on there must have just started watching MMA or needs to get their heads checked. Even if he did TKO GSP, he is not on the same level.

Soku had two good wins and he is top 10 pnp? Seriously?

I pretty much agree with Steve’s list. I do have some qualms with Rampage and maybe Couture. Otherwise, great list.

Not to nitpick, Steve, but if the reason you excluded Liddell from the list is because of holes in his game, then I could argue the same about Couture. His 2 losses to Liddell were of the same fashion. It shows more of Randy’s weakness than Chuck’s 2 losses to Rampage, one of which I would consider a fluke.

You can’t possibly put GSP in the top 5. He’s arguably not even the best in his weight class much less top 5 pound for pound fighter. He narrowly escaped a huge upset from Kos after getting rocked in his first title defense. Don’t get me wrong GSP is the future of this sport, but not top 5 right now. And the fact is you can not put Couture on this list without Liddell. It just doesn’t make sense. Lidell beat him into retirement. Couture came back because he saw a huge hole in the heavyweight class and figured he had another run in him. He beat Sylvia and Gonzaga. No offense to the hall of famer but thats not enough to put him so far above Liddell. Put Couture in the cage with Rampage and Randy would be right back into retirement. It was widely speculated that Couture was just “baby sitting” the title until Mirko started running the table in the UFC. Gonzaga literally kicked that out the window and now the 44 year old is having a great run in a weak weight class. That being said you really have to consider Chuck on this list and even more consideration to 145 pound WEC champion Uriah Faber. Just something to consider….. love the MMA coverage, keep it up.

Everyone seems to agree Fedor is number one, pound for pound. That fact seems to be giving him quite a lot of leverage in his negotiations with UFC and Dana White. On the other hand, UFC also has quite a lot of leverage because of the stable of fighters it now has, especially after the Pride buyout. (I disagree somewhat with John about the current UFC heavyweight division being “weak.” It’s not as strong as it could be, but it’s pretty decent now with Nog, Cro Cop–he’ll be back, Vera, Couture, Arlovski, etc.)

I would think UFC doesn’t really need Fedor as much as Fedor needs UFC. Sure, Fedor can wait for another year or two, but he’ll gather ring rust (or octagon rust). Then again, Fedor can fill time and earn some extra cash by fighting another sub-stellar opponent like Matt Lindland (who is stellar at middleweight, but not heavyweight) in organizations like Bodogfight (is that short for “bogus dog fight”?)

To Great… check your facts… Chuck Liddell did not defend the title 11 times. Only 7, which is still an amazing feat, considering who his competition was. And though I would still put him in my top 10, I feel “The Iceman” is usually given ground fighters, because thats what he has the perfect plan for. But with a skilled boxer such as Jackson, those looping punches wont be effective. When his jabs, crosses, clinch work, and short hooks become better suited for another stand up fighter, Chuck may neverbe able to really stand with Jackson, Wanderlei, or Shogun. We’ll see if his game has improved when he fights Jardine.

I think Henderson should have to fight the winner in next months fight between Okami and Macdonald. The middleweight division is probably the weakest division in the UFC, I really don’t see a dominant contender to challenge Anderson Silva. I was hopeful for Kendall Grove and Chris Leben, but I think both are at least 3 good wins away from a title opportunity. It would be interesting if Michael Bisping were to decide to drop down to 185lbs.

Those are 4 title defenses. No one is disputing the fact that Liddell is a great fighter. He’s afterall in my top 5 favorites. I agree with your opinion on his boxing. He needs to improve on his stand up if he ever wants to smell that belt again. Afterall his stand up and takedown defense is what makes him great. Start by putting those hands up.